President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, in accordance with advice from the governing board of the Forestry Commission – given in consultation with the Public Services Commission, has appointed seasoned professional forester Hugh C.A. Brown as Executive Director of the Forest Services Division (FSD) of the Forestry Commission, Ghana; following a competitive interview supervised by the Public Services Commission to fill the vacant position.
Mr. Brown, with almost three decades of experience in tropical forest management, protection and development prior to the appointment, was the Director of Operations responsible for forest plantations; a position he held for 10 years.
A letter signed by Ing. Mrs. Mabel Amoako-Atta, Secretary of the Public Services Commission, noted that his appointment took effect from June 14, 2022 and charged Mr. Brown to help provide strategic vision and direction for achieving the strategic business objectives and goals of the FSD and Forestry Commission.
Profile of Mr. Hugh C.A Brown
Hugh is a certified forester with over 28 years’ work experience in tropical forest management, protection and development. He holds a BSc. in Natural Resources Management and an MBA from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana, and a Masters in Forestry (MF) from Yale University, U.S.A.
His professional affiliations include the Ghana Institute of Foresters (member, 1994); Society of American Foresters (Certified Forester, 2010); and Society for Ecological Restoration (member, 2010; Certified Ecological Restoration Practitioner, 2018).
He currently represents Africa on the steering committee of TEAKNET – an international network of institutions, companies and individuals involved in the cultivation, research, harvesting, processing and marketing of teak timber. He was instrumental in helping Ghana win the bid to host the upcoming World Teak Conference (WTC 2022) in September this year.
Under his able leadership as Director of Operations (Plantations)-FSD, over 450,000 hectares of degraded forest land is currently under restoration nationwide, employing various landscape restoration interventions.
He also recently coordinated the planting of an estimated 7 million tree seedlings and 25 million tree seedlings under the president’s flagship programme, dubbed Green Ghana 2021 and 2022 respectively, which aims at restoring our degraded landscapes and contributing to the global fight against climate change.
He has co-authored publications in Forest Ecology and Management, and IUFRO World Series journals. He was lead-editor of the book ‘Ghana Forest Plantation Strategy: 2016 – 2040’ which provides a blueprint for forest landscape restoration in Ghana. In 2020, he was awarded the Prospect Street Award for environmental leadership by Yale University – the first person of African descent to win this prestigious global award.
